Archives for June, 2006

We hear excerpts from speeches delivered by co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Smith at the Left Forum this year. The Law and Disorder panel was named Ten Minutes To Midnight, a reference Michael Smith later explains as he parallels the current legislative and judicial direction of the US to similar police state tactics employed by Nazi Germany. In the second speech co-host Michael Ratner and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, lays out a similar framework and cites recent supreme court decisions, the Patriot Act expansion and a weak kneed Congress as key stepping stones to a police state build-up.

At the Amnesty International General Meeting in Oregon this year, co-host Dalia Hashad and producer Geoff Brady recorded a number of panels and interviews, among them were a number of musicians who volunteered for Amnesty’s Make Some Noise concert at the historic Roseland Theater. Dalia caught up with American songwriter and singer Suzanne Vega. Vega sat down for a Law and Disorder interview and spoke with Dalia about her music, human rights and expression these ideas through music.

We also hear a heart-felt interview with co-host Dalia Hashad as she talks with Ed Ryan and Joel Kosche from Collective Soul, the alternative post-grunge band from Stockbridge Georgia and one of the headliners at Amnesty’s Make Some Noise Concert at the Roseland Theater in Portland Oregon.

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Tasers – Part II

This year Amnesty International released a report on Tasers. (download PDF here) The report also looks at the systematic misuse of tasers by police and in prisons. It points out that there is a widespread policy of using tasers as a routine compliance tool on subjects who are passively resisting or “perceived” to not be complying with orders. Taser misuse is increasingly linked with unnecessary punishment, degradation and torture. In part I of the Taser series, Law and Disorder hosts spoke with Ed Jackson. (listen here) This week we go to Portland, Oregon where during Amnesty International’s General Annual Meeting, co-host Dalia Hashad caught up with Amnesty International spokeswoman and Taser expert Mona Cadena in Pioneer Square.

Law and Disorder Hosts Visit Political Prisoners – A Discussion

Co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith talked about their recent visits with political prisoners Mumia Abu- Jamal and David Gilbert. Heidi talks about her visit with Mumia Abu-Jamal on death row in Waynesburg, Pennsylvannia and the the National Lawyers Guild’s plan to file an Amicus Brief in Mumia’s case.

Gilbert was a founding member of Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society and member of The Weather Underground Organization. Following eleven years underground he was arrested with members of the Black Liberation Army and other radicals following a botched armored car robbery in 1981. He is now a well-known prisoner serving time in upstate New York. Read more about David Gilbert here.

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Co-host Dalia Hashad interviews Bill Schulz at Pioneer Square before the anti-torture rally. We also listen to Bill Schulz deliver an inspiring outgoing speech during the rally. This is part of hours of amazing audio interviews and speeches from the Amnesty General Meeting, stay tuned for more in the weeks to come.

Supreme Court Limits Protections For Government Whistleblowers.

Whistleblowers lose rights. The recent Supreme Court decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) has removed key pieces from the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1986. The decision effectively limits First Amendment protection for government whistleblowers since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protections do not extend to government employees for comments made while performing their official duties, even when the employee is acting to expose alleged government wrongdoing.

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A United Nations anti-torture panel has urged the United States to punish law enforcement officials who mistreated suspects in Chicago. The 10-member UN Committee Against Torture reported that the multimillion-dollar investigation into the alleged torture of 200 Black men in interrogation rooms during the 1970s and 1980s has not resulted in any prosecutions. According to a press release, nearly 200 African Americans were tortured by former Commander Jon Burge and detectives under his command at the Chicago Police Department. Among the torture techniques were electrically shocking genitals with cattle prods, suffocations with plastic bags and pistols jammed in mouths in a mock execution. Listen to Law and Disorder’s previous interview on this case.

Reverse Rendition Update

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was originally charged with plotting with Middle East terrorists to assassinate President Bush. An American student who studied abroad in Saudi Arabia, was kidnapped and tortured by Saudis and brought back to the United States. (Read New York Times article here)

Abu Ali is a Houston-born American citizen and the valedictorian of his high school class in suburban Virginia. Back in the U.S. Abu Ali faced trial based on alleged tortured confessions in Saudi Arabia. Abu Ali’s description of Saudi torture tactics are consistent with known Saudi torture interrogation techniques. The evidence of torture was not admitted into the courtroom and Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

In this Law and Disorder exclusive interview, the hosts speak with Tasneem Abu Ali, the sister of Ahmed. She is now trying to get her brother out of prison.

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How it is possible to end the Iraq occupation? Hosts look at the intentionality of stirring up an unnatural conflict among the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites and later pull back to discuss the larger picture of the Iraq occupation.